


Reverto Vitus

by WildAdapted



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildAdapted/pseuds/WildAdapted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock tries to find his way back to Vulcan from Romulus, only to encounter something he never expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reverto Vitus

**Author's Note:**

> Written with my buddy Shidoni8 last years for LJ's Team Spork

The sun rose over Romulus, slowly infusing each area with a sense of warmth, which, in only a few hours, would set. Spock stood beneath an awning, covered in shadow.  After several moments there was movement from a nearby building. A figure approached him, speaking softly, "Are you ready?"

"I am. Is the ship prepared?" Spock asked, keeping his voice low to avoid detection.

"All ready, Ambassador. Please follow me." The two men walked some distance to a platform. There stood a small shuttle. "You should be able to get as far as Vulcan without trouble."

"Thank you, S'Hauen. I am in your debt."

"Not at all, Ambassador. You have greatly helped my people. Have a safe journey."

Spock gave the Vulcan salute. "Live long, and prosper, S'Hauen."

"Live long, and prosper, Ambassador Spock." S'Hauen turned from the Vulcan, rushing off before the sun had finished rising. With a weary sigh, Spock entered the shuttlecraft, checking all of the vitals before starting up the engine.

As he passed the Romulan Ozone, he felt the unfamiliar feeling of relief pass over him. He had no official reason for going back to Vulcan, and leaving during a common hour would lead to questions he had no answers for. He neared the boarder of the Neutral Zone, knowing he could pass undetected in such a small shuttle.

Upon passing the Neutral Zone all seemed clear, and Spock prepared for a slow, smooth passing to Vulcan. His eye caught something on his sensors. He checked his scanners, finding that he was heading towards what appeared to be an Ion Storm. Not seeing a way around the storm, he decided it was logical to fly through.

Turbulence hit the ship harder than he anticipated. Spock immediately tried to find the smoothest way through the storm, but found none. When the turbulence violently increased, Spock hit his head on the sensor panel, knocking himself out.

After what seemed like hours, Spock awoke only to find himself floating in space. His ship was nowhere in sight. Storm clouds surrounded him in every direction. He could not find a logical reason to still be alive after hitting his head as hard as he knew he did. And that is if you ignored the fact that he was currently floating in space without any oxygen. Logically, he had to be dead.

 **"SPOCK."** A voice echoed from all around him.

"Yes?" was all Spock could think to say.

 **"YOU STILL LIVE. BUT IN ORDER TO CONTINUE, YOU MUST PASS THE TRIALS."**

"What sort of trials?"

 **"IT IS TO TEST YOU. IF YOU PASS YOU MAY MOVE ON."**

"Move on where?"

 **"YOU WILL MOVE ON TO WHERE YOU BELONG. WILL YOU AGREE TO MOVE ON TO THE TRIALS?"**

"I believe I have little choice."

 **"YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE, SPOCK."**

"So be it, I will participate." Suddenly Spock's vision fogged, all sound disappeared. Spock couldn't breathe; he felt his body changing, time flowing past him at a rate he could never calculate. _'What sort of trials will I be forced to face?'_ Spock wondered, just before everything stopped moving.

The first thing Spock noticed, as his surroundings began to focus, was that he was standing in what appeared to be a field, surrounded by deciduous trees under a blue sky. Basically Earth-like in appearance, however he was unable to determine his location more specifically. He heard a female voice, at first muted, but growing clearer every second.

"I was one of the first to find them" With Spock's vision fully returned , he quickly made a few observations. First, that he looked and felt much younger than before. Second, that he recognized the strange, flowering plant before him and the blonde, human woman to his right. Spock did not know why this particular incident had been chosen as a trial, but he was willing to follow it through to its conclusion. "The spores," she finished.

"Spores?" he asked, in much the same tone he'd used years ago on the planet Omicron Ceti III, before the aforementioned spores were expelled from the plant, as he knew they would be.

Intense pain suffused his senses, altering his mind and physiology, but because he knew it would be over momentarily he bore it in silence, wondering if foresight would have any impact on the effects of the spores.

Suddenly it ceased to matter. Spock raised his eyes and looked around, seeing the trees and grass, both brilliantly jade-hued by the light of the planet's particular sun, really seeing its beauty. _'This is no trial,'_ he thought, _'but a gift, given by a higher power. This is an amazing place, a paradise. I must find-'_

"Spock?" the woman, Leila, probed. He turned his smile on her, seeing her expectant and hopeful face gazing back at him only to be disappointed upon his next utterance.

"Jim," Spock said clearly, "I must find Jim and share this with him." He rose and attempted to leave but was stopped by the touch of Leila's hand on his arm.

"But Mr. Spock, surely that can wait until later," she implored. "I love you, Spock, don't you love me too?" He didn't even pause to think before he replied.

"I do love you, Leila, just as I would love all living things and marvels of the universe, but not in the same way that you love me." And he left her in the field, stunned to silence.

Upon Spock's arrival back at the compound, his communicator beeped just as he approached Jim and Doctor McCoy. He felt such immense relief, happiness, and love upon seeing Kirk again, just as the blonde man had appeared many decades ago, that Spock came up from behind and put his arms around Jim's shoulders. The Captain was so surprised he whirled around, dislodging Spock's arms as confusion overtook his features. McCoy, meanwhile, appeared almost flabbergasted at the sight of Spock smiling so widely.

"Mr. Spock, I was just comming you." He gestured to his communicator, clearly unsettled. "Are you alright, Spock, you look a little-"

"Emotional?" supplied the confounded doctor.

"Jim, it is most wonderful to see you again," Spock exclaimed. "This place," he sighed, "is a paradise. We can stay here forever and be happy. Everything we could ever want, at our fingertips." He placed a hand on Kirk's arm, "You must come with me."

"Why, Spock? Why come with you? And why are you so happy?" the man was almost at a loss for words.

"There is a plant, Jim. Application of the spores from this plant causes perfect contentment and can make us all immune to Berthold Rays, the crewmen and the colonists. It is a happy, peaceful life, Jim. There is belonging, and love. You will see." As Spock spoke Kirk's face became more and more concerned.

"Spock, if what you say is true then we need to find an antidote right now and get everybody off this planet."

"No," Spock said intently. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Why couldn't Jim understand? _'This isn't right at all,'_ another voice within him said, _'it's all wrong,'_ it continued as Spock tried to ignore it. A memory from long ago came unbidden to his mind. Kirk was saying, _"No wants, no needs. We weren't meant for that, none of us. A man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."_ "Come with me," Spock insisted once more, trying to drown out his inner voice. Kirk was speaking, but Spock couldn't hear him through the haze of his own mind's protests.

 _'Wrong, false, unfair. They--humans--need drive, accomplishment.'_ Trying unsuccessfully to subdue his true voice, Spock turned from Jim and McCoy, face contorted in concentration. He withdrew, almost completely, into his mind to find a solution. Through the amorphous representation of his mental self he glimpsed a part which was almost fully encased in a barrier. It was shouting and beating on the translucent wall, and Spock could only heart snatches of what it saying 'Wrong, wrong, all wrong!' the representation was yelled, _'You need me, you need conflict or you can't possibly call it living! Don't leave me here!'_ Spock understood, could finally think clearly, and he strode to the barrier, lifting his fists. As he brought them down he broke out of his trance, all traces of the spores' effect completely gone.

He had time enough only to glimpse the concerned faces of the Captain and McCoy before he once again lost the ability to breathe and all his senses slowly failed him, as they had before this trial began. Finding himself in the same floating storm clouds as before, he again heard the rumbling voice from everywhere and nowhere.

 **"SPOCK, YOU HAVE PASSED THE FIRST OF THE TRIALS."**

He merely nodded. Even if the challenges were illusions, it had evidently been the right choice to treat them completely seriously.

 **"DO YOU CHOOSE TO CONTINUE?"**

"I do," he said. He had only just recovered from the feeling of breathlessness when it overtook him once again.

As soon as Spock began to recoup his senses he was assailed by the impression of being inexplicably grounded and yet physically unwell. The sense of belonging and stability Spock quickly attributed to Vulcan. Not only did he see the land of his Family and the blistering expanse of Vulcan's Forge in the distance, he also felt the tug of the mental connection he had to the planet . This connection steadied him as he almost immediately realized that he was experiencing  Pon farr, from which he accredited his physical illness.

Recognizing his once intended mate, T'Pring, he heard her cry "Kal-if-fee!" Spock only had a moment of clarity before he unwillingly entered the Plak tow, a biological reaction to the initiation of the challenge.

 _'NO!'_ he howled mentally, but he could not speak, and within moments the fever had consumed his mind so that all which remained was an emerald fog behind heavily lidded eyes and the tense readiness to fight. Spock could have spent hours in the "Blood Fever" and never known the difference, but he knew it had only been a minute or two at the most when he was dimly brought to consciousness by T'Pau's harsh voice and could attend to the wedding party's conversation.

For the second time in his life Spock came to one of the most horrifying conclusions he had ever reached: he would have to fight Jim Kirk, his best friend and superior officer, to the death and there was no chance that Spock would lose, already having three times the strength of the average human and consumed with the fever.

Spock pleaded with T'Pau, just as he had so many years ago, to spare Kirk this fate. To save Jim Kirk, who was so brave, honorable, and painfully ignorant at the moment, from the end Spock loathed to bestow upon him. As before she gave the Captain his misguided choice, and as he took it Spock's thoughts raced. What was the solution? It couldn't be a simple reenactment, for that would be a most illogical trial. He was running out of time; the fever was continuously trying to consume him. What was different, or could be changed, from what happen before? Only Spock's own choices, from what he had observed.

 _'That must be it,'_ he came to his epiphany quite suddenly, _'Last time I was too taken by the fever to do anything but fight Jim. And the part of me that had been sane was afraid of T'Pau's condemnations and insinuations about my heritage. But now, I am not as conflicted as I once was, as Commander on the Enterprise. Now I can make the choice I would have made, had I been as self-aware then as I am now.'_

Decision made, Spock seated himself on the steps by the fire-pit and delved down, as far into his own mind as he could possibly withdraw. Becoming painfully aware of every part of his body and the strain it had been under, he slowly began breaking links, one after another.

"Bones, what's happening?" Spock heard alarmed and confused voices as the Vulcans and Humans swarmed around him.

"Dammit! His vitals are all dropping at an increasingly fast rate. Jim, if we don't get him back to sickbay in the next couple of minutes he's dead!" came the voice of Doctor McCoy. Spock could hear Jim's voice then, demanding and controlled, but quickly silenced by T'Pau. Even when faced with such unusual circumstances she still insisted they refrain from interfering.

'It is no matter,' was one of Spock's last conscious thoughts. 'The deed will be done before they can contemplate the cause.'

"No!" Jim cried, as McCoy's predictions became gradually direr. Kirk spent those last thirty seconds of Spock's life pleading to the deaf universe for another outcome and, as the starship captain's voice broke and faded from Spock's awareness, the connection between the body and mind was finally severed. Spock was no stranger to dying, and yet again he found he could do nothing but embrace what came next.  
The blackness of that space between life and death emerged between trials and the voice took no time in speaking.

 **"WELL DONE, SPOCK."**

Silence filled the vast space. The force behind the voice was clearly letting him rest. Spock kept his eyes closed, allowing time to pass, and his body to recover from the recent ordeal. He had no idea how much time had passed before the voice spoke to him again. **"ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEXT CHALLENGE?"**

"I am." Spock felt his surroundings change, his eyes opened. He was standing in an open arena, almost like a roman coliseum. When he was sure the ground below him was solid, Spock relaxed his body. He didn't recognize the arena; it was not from his past. On the other side of the field he saw a figure walking towards him.

 **"FOR THIS CHALLENGE YOU MUST DEFEAT YOUR GREATEST FOE."**

Spock's challenger's face cleared as the mist began to dissipate. It took all his Vulcan training not to retract from shock. The man that stood before him bore his face, his physique, and his hair from when he was younger.

Spock felt his own body had remained the same since his last challenge. This man could have been his twin, if not for the beard. His uniform was also quite different, rather than a simple long-sleeve blue sweater, he wore a folded blue dress shirt, with gold trim. Several badges adorned his chest, and a gold sash wrapped around his waist.

 _"It would be logical for us to fight."_ The other Spock said.

"Where is the logic in fighting?"

 _"We must assume that we are trapped here unless we fight. Therefore, in order to escape we must fight until one of us is defeated."_

"I suppose it is logical. Shall we begin?"

 _"I suppose."_

The two Vulcans stared each other down before lunging forward towards each other. Their strength was equal, causing neither to budge. The bearded Spock grabbed Spock's arm, flinging him over his shoulder to the ground. Spock hit the hard earth, causing a large cloud of dust to cover both their bodies. Loss of sight did nothing to slow the bearded Spock. He pinned Spock to the ground, raising an arm for a death blow, but Spock managed to free his left arm and knock the bearded Spock off of him.

 _"You fight well."_

"As do you. This fight is becoming less and less logical."

 _"We are equals in strength, but our backgrounds and skills differ. This fight is quite logical; you must defeat your foe in order to continue."_  
"I see there is no reasoning with you. I suppose we should continue." Spock reasoned before attacking, putting his weight forward, forcing his bearded counterpart to his knees.

The bearded Spock managed to shift the weight, freeing his right leg, and kicked Spock's legs out from under him. He pinned his forearm to Spock's jugular, keeping the Vulcan pinned to the ground. Spock swung his arm forward, punching the bearded Spock in the chin, causing him to lose his balance. The Vulcan loosened his grip, but did not move from atop Spock. Spock gathered his strength, rolling, causing a switch in position between the two. "While I have your attentionSpock, I have something to ask you. You are aware that you and I are of equal strength. How is it logical for us to fight? According to the teachings of Surak, violence and emotions are deemed illogical. Would not the logical thing to do be to talk this over as men rather than fight?"

The bearded Spock stared up at him, brown eyes digging into him. "I see. Your logic is sound. You are correct, as Vulcans we must not do battle as animals but as the teachings of Surak tell us." Spock, placated, stood, helping the bearded Spock to his feet.

"As two logical men, how would you suggest we get out of this place?"

 _"To leave this place you must defeat yourself."_

"Defeat myself? You mean I must defeat you?"

 _"I am you, but I am also not you."_

"I see. Unless I am mistaken, years ago when Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Uhura, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott traveled via a transporter malfunction to another dimension, it was yours. Our dimension experienced the same phenomenon and we received the Jim, Uhura, Doctor, and Mr. Scott from your universe, correct?"

 _"I believe so."_

"I am still at a loss of how to defeat you."

 _"You already have, Spock. I attacked you, you reasoned with me. I realized I was acting illogically. Therefore, you have defeated me. You are far more aware of our differences, than our similarities."_

"I see. Yet I am still here."

The voice began to speak through the bearded Spock, **"YOU ARE DONE HERE. PREPARE FOR YOUR NEXT CHALLENGE, SPOCK."** The arena dissipated, returning Spock to the storm cloud.

 **"SPOCK, IT IS TIME FOR YOUR FOURTH CHALLENGE. ARE YOU PREPARED?"**

"I am." Spock informed before he felt his surroundings change once again. Before the fog cleared, Spock heard Admiral Kirk's voice call "What?"

"They're on a build-up to detonation." Jim's son, David, shouted. Spock saw them close to him. He was staring at familiar readings. He looked around, Jim and David were arguing about how to stop the detonation.

"Scotty, I need warp speed in three minutes or we're all dead!" Jim called into the comm. The intercom crackled, there was no reply.

"No response, Admiral." Uhura told him. Spock watched the scene play out before him as if it were a hologram. Everything playing out as it did that day eighty years ago. He remembered his realization of how the velocity of the Genesis wave would destroy the engines.

"Scotty!" Jim cried.

Spock knew he had to make the same decision. He knew this situation was not real, but it was a challenge, and he needed to pass. He heard Kirk yell at Savvik to switch to impulse power. Savvik followed his orders, spinning the Enterprise one hundred eighty degrees, moving them away from the Reliant.

Spock stood, knowing no one would notice or try to stop him. He made his way to the turbo-lift, going down to the engine room.

He ignored the flashing warning lights, and the bodies that littered the floor. He saw Dr. McCoy trying to help injured crewmen, while those with minor injuries were busy trying to keep impulse power.

He once again walked past everyone towards the main reactor room, touching the override control.

"Are you out of your _Vulcan mind_?" He heard McCoy shout, as he tried to stop him. "No human can tolerate the radiation that's in there!"

Without looking up, Spock repeated his original words, as if reading from a prompter, "As you are so fond of observing, Doctor, I am not human."

"You're not going in there-!"

Spock smiled to himself, this was so familiar. Dr. McCoy was just as predictable as always. However, reliving the event did not make it any easier. He sighed, turning to face the doctor. "Perhaps you're right. What is Mr. Scott's condition?"

"Well, I don't think that he-" Spock cut him off with the Vulcan nerve pinch.

He watched the doctor hit the floor, knowing what he had to do. He bent down, placing his hand on Dr. McCoy's face. To his shock, nothing happened. Spock expected to feel his katra passing onto McCoy, but the feeling never happened.

He understood.

This was a part of the challenge. If he passed his katra like before then dying would be no problem. If he couldn't pass his katra, then dying would be the end. He stood. It made no difference; he still had to save the Enterprise. He went back and finished the manual override code, and stepped into the radiation flux.

Scotty, running into the room, noticed Spock in the radiation room, "Spock- get out of there!" He hit the glass, "Spock! Spock! Get outta there!" he spotted Dr. McCoy on the floor, and tried to wake him.

Spock ignored him, continuing his work. He felt the radiation entering his body as before. He reached towards the damping rods. The aura of radiation consumed him; he felt it entering his skin, blood, and bones. He drew the rods from their clamps, trying to work quickly.

Dr. McCoy was now awake and joined Scotty, both outside the glass, screaming for Spock to get out. Spock found his focus slipping this time. He remembered that last time he barely noticed their cries. His focus was completely on the reactor. This time his mind wandered. He knew what would happen; he knew he had to face it. Like the three challenges before, he knew what he had to do.

Everything seemed to speed up, and before he knew it he heard Jim's voice on the comm., "Bless you, Scotty!" Spock used the wall to hold himself up. Illusion or not, he felt the full effects of the radiation. After a few moments that felt like forever, Jim's voice once again rang from the comm. "Engine room. Well done, Scotty."

Dr. McCoy walked over, pressing the comm. button, "Jim, I think you'd better get down here."

Spock couldn't hear the rest of what was said, but both Scotty and Dr. McCoy had gone silent. He knew they were waiting, but the radiation affected his memory, he couldn't remember who they were waiting for.

Spock heard a rush of familiar footsteps, muffled yelling outside the glass. He turned seeing Jim stumbling towards the glass, before pressing the intercom. "Spock!" He called, his voice sounding odd. "Spock!"

Spock made his way to the glass, leaning on it, "Ship-out of danger?" he asked. He knew this. This is what happened before. He remembered this was all part of the challenge, but it gave him little strength.

"Yes-"

This time, Spock decided, it would be different, he wanted to tell Jim what his Vulcan mind refused to let him acknowledge. "Jimdo not grieve." He felt himself repeating his old words, but stopped himself. "I feel it necessary to tell you, Jim."

"What is it, Spock?"

"My feelings for you are illogical,"

"What-?" Jim cut him off.

"But in this case, I find it better to be illogical. Jim, I did what I had to. I was the only one who could do it. You had to let me help."

"Spock"

Spock removed his glove, as he did eighty-some years ago, and placed his hand on the glass. "I have been  and always shall be  your friend." Jim placed his hand to mirror Spock's. "Live long. And prosper." He felt himself sink to the floor.

He didn't understand the point of these challenges, but it was nice to see Jim again. Spock knew he disappeared into the Nexus years ago, and was as good as dead. Even if it was an illusion, it was pleasant to see Jim Kirk once again. Spock smiled to himself as he felt his body transported back to the storm cloud.

 **"SPOCK,"** said the voice, **"YOU HAVE COMPLETED ALL THE TRIALS. YOU CAN NOW MOVE ON TO WHERE YOU BELONG."** Having expected to hear that there was yet another challenge to face, it took Spock a moment to process what he had heard.

"Wait!" he called before he could be transported to wherever the voice deemed he belonged, "Will you answer one question for me? Why have I been put through these trials? What was the purpose?" A pregnant pause seemed to charge the air in the cloudy surroundings with tension.

 **"YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK TO THE PLACE FROM WHENCE YOU CAME."** At this revelation Spock felt little alarm, for he had had nothing left in life except his work on Romulus, which could easily be accomplished by another. All his friends and family were dead, like his father more recently, or presumed dead, as Jim was. **"YET YOU NEEDED TO BE SOMEWHERE, THAT IS TRUE AS WELL,"** the voice continued, **"AND SO, HAVING INFINITE POSSIBILITIES AT MY DISPOSAL, I DEVISED THE CHALLENGES, USING WHAT I FOUND IN YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS, TO DISCOVER WHERE IT WAS THAT YOU WOULD BELONG ABOVE ALL ELSE. NOW THAT THE MATTER HAS BEEN SETTLED, ARE YOU PREPARED TO END YOUR JOURNEY?"**

"I am," Spock said, satisfied with the voice's answer. The crux of each trial had been Spock's decisions, or force of will, therefore he would trust what the being had understood from the process and the conclusion it had come to, whatever that was. He had thought he had had no choice in the matter, but Spock now realized that through his other choices he had indirectly chosen his fate.

 **"VERY WELL. FAREWELL, SPOCK."** Rather than a gradual fading Spock seemed merely to blink before his surroundings had changed.

He found himself on the inside of a turbo-lift from the Enterprise of one hundred years ago. Glancing down Spock could see he looked and felt young once more. This couldn't be another moment from his past, could it? Had the being simply determined that his ideal place was the Enterprise? Was that true, after all the years in between? Suddenly the turbo-lift doors slid open and with a small gasp Spock realized why he was here.

James Kirk was sitting in the center of the bridge, leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, gazing at the view-screen. Spock took a wavering half-step out of the lift, uncertain that what he was seeing was not another memory, or a figment of imagination.

Kirk turned at the sound of the lift. Upon seeing Spock, his face took on a look of joy which melted, after only a second, into a sad smile.

"'Lo Spock," he said, rising from the captain's chair. "What are you up to? I wasn't expecting you." The last sentence seemed to hold more weight than the forced nonchalance of the previous greeting.

"Jim," Spock managed, for he was still practically speechless. If Jim was here, then Spock must be in the Nexus. He remembered trying to find a smooth way through the 'ion storm' and being knocked unconscious. The voice must be some authority of the Nexus, and that being had determined that Spock belonged here, with Jim Kirk.  
"Yes, Spock? What is it?" Kirk asked, continuously unfazed. Perhaps he did not know what the situation was.

"Are you aware," Spock asked tentatively, "that we are both in the spatial anomaly known as 'The Nexus'?" At this question Jim almost looked affronted.

"Of course, I know where I am. The God-voice told me. But I haven't spoken with it in what feels like years."

"Jim, I do not believe that the voice belongs to a deity of any kind, simply an extremely powerful being whose influence is limited to the interior of the Nexus." Spock then heard the most amazing sound: that of Jim's laughter.

"Now that's more like the Spock I know," he said through his grin, "You don't usually even bring up the Nexus in conversation," Kirk's face darkened a little.

"Usually?" Spock questioned, taking a step closer, resting his hands on the railing that partially encircling the bridge. "How can you have spoken to me before, Jim? I just arrived in the Nexus."

"Oh, I think you up all the time, Spock, you should know. It gets lonely being in the Nexus all alone. I can go anywhere at the blink of an eye," he demonstrated by suddenly changing the scenery to that of a tropical beach and then to a dark city street and back to the bridge as Spock looked around curiously, "but that gets a bit boring after a while so I usually call you up and replay all those great things we used to do."

"I believe you are mistaken," Spock said with sudden understanding, "I am truly myself. I attempted to maneuver through what I thought to be an ion storm shortly after crossing the neutral zone after leaving Romulus and entered the Nexus by mistake." Kirk's face lit up infinitesimally, but he was clearly smothering his emotional reaction.

"I want you to be real, Spock," he said, coming around the edge of the railing and crossing his arms against his chest, "but if I want it so much, I'm sure to dream it up. You'll say anything I want you to say, so no question I ask could prove your authenticity. How can I tell?" The hidden vulnerability came out in his earnest question. Spock thought for a moment, coming closer and brushing the other man's arm with gentle fingertips, trying to communicate reassurance.

"Perhaps, if I cannot say anything to prove myself, there is something I could do instead," he said softly, proffering his right hand, fingers spread and hovering above the psionic meld-points of Kirk's face.

"You've you've never been able to do a mind meld since I entered the Nexus," Kirk said quietly, "probably because you've got no mind of your own," his voice was choked suddenly as though he were about to cry. Kirk shut his eyes and pressed his face forward into Spock's open hand, searching for stability. As the link was established he gripped the railing with one hand and Spock's wrist with the other. Spock opened a channel between their minds, yet he guarded it closely to see that Kirk wasn't overwhelmed.

Tentatively, he entered Jim's mind, sensing the stagnant lassitude that the Nexus had presented and the repeated ups and downs of encountering Spock again and again only to be painfully reminded that he was, each time, simply a replica and capable of nothing but repetition and empty wish-fulfillment. Spock grimaced, assaulted by this emotional pain, and tried to feed comfort through the mental link that used to be so strong. As soon as Kirk realized the reality of the situation he focused on the meld, letting down his emotional shields and giving Spock access to everything he felt or thought. Spock's attempts to be guarded were overthrown as he, not Kirk, was the one overwhelmed with the other's emotions and his own began to escape their restraints. The floodgates were opened.

They fell, together, down into a swirling pool. It was deep with history, bubbling with joy and warm with love. As the current carried them under the surface Spock saw himself through Jim's eyes: dark and mysterious at first, loyal to a fault, brilliant but unaffected by ego, and most of all: he was the center of Jim's universe. Spock couldn't help but let out a cascade of his own emotions, buried for years as a young man: warmth of belonging on the Enterprise because of Jim's welcoming nature and their comfortable friendship, the fear when he was uncertain and still trying desperately to cling to the Vulcan way, the remorse and guilt of the years he'd spent away from Jim's side, and the complete contentment of the time they had had together. Settling into this state, of being more one than separate, they floated toward the surface of the limpid pool, which had gone still.

Opening their eyes simultaneously, Spock and Jim found themselves in a field of gorgeous wildflowers. Jim smiled a little and leaned on Spock for support, weakened by the formation of the bond which they had just endured unprepared.

 _"Where are we?"_ he asked Spock without speaking, choosing to test the power of their mental connection instead.

 _"This is a place we visited on shore leave once, almost at the center of Yosemite National Park. I believe you called it 'the site of Heaven on Earth,' at the time. I thought it was a fitting resting place after what we have just endured."_

 _"Yes, well,"_ Kirk conceded, _"you were with me at the time, my love, so it was bound to be Heaven."_

Spock pulled back, smiling with ineffable adoration. _"That is, and was, precisely my thought as well, T'hy'la."_

 _"You've called me that before,"_ Jim joked even as he was suffused with pleasure at the term.

"This time, T'hy'la," Spock said aloud, "I will never stop doing so."

"Well we've only got forever," Jim said, grinning into the kiss he pulled his eternal bond-mate into.


End file.
